“According to the Security Service of Ukraine, almost a fifth of those whom the Russian intelligence services have been recruited for their terrorist or sabotage tasks in Ukraine are minors. Source: SBU spokesman Artem Dekhtyarenko on Radio Liberty: “Russians recruit for their tasks mainly minors, unemployed and people with different types of addiction.”, – WRITE: www.pravda.com.ua
Source: SBU spokesman Artem Dehtyarenko on the air “Radio Liberty”
Direct Language: “The Russians recruit for their tasks mainly juvenile, unemployed and people with different types of addiction. Well, for example, narcotic, alcohol or play.
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According to our statistics, 22% of exposed malefactors are minors, 55% are unemployed, and 7% of perpetrators had a criminal record for various crimes. These people are easier for psychological manipulations, because young people are not able to fully evaluate the consequences of their actions, and dependent money is needed at any cost. ”
Details: Dekhtyarenko noted that the car of the Armed Forces and sabotage on the railway was intensified in May 2024, but to recruit for the organization of explosions, including children, began from the beginning of 2025.
The youngest performers of Russian orders, which the SBU exposed on the arson of the relay cabinets “Ukrzaliznytsia” were 13-year-old teenage agents. The oldest is a 52-year-old man who tried to lay explosives in the Dnieper.
In his turn, the head of the Department of Juvenile Prevention of the National Police Vasyl Bogdan said that the police are now watching the number of cases of recruitment of children, compared to last year, at the same time the number of appeals about the facts of attempted recruitment of children has increased:
“Cases of recruiting children began to appear since April last year (2024 – ed.) And the peak of their number was in late summer – in early autumn last year. Then the trend began to fall, but if in the beginning there were some simple tasks, if you can say so – from the arson of relay cabinets and cars, now, as we see. A rapid increase in police appeals about the facts of attempting to recruit children, ”says Bogdan.
According to teenagers who have been recruited, police identify several reasons why minors agree to the following cooperation: material benefits, psychological techniques for manipulating adventure, crime romanticization and blackmail.
“Having some sensitive information about the child, or personal, or one that concerns already completed simple tasks, the curator can be blackmailed for its disclosure,” the national representative said.
The police are urging to contact law enforcement officers, their parents, and teachers, if such attempts were known.
Prehistory:
- The SBU and the National Police found that the terrorist attack in Ivano-Frankivsk organized Russian special services on March 11: they remotely blew up two published teenagers for 17 and 15 years, which transferred the explosive to the place of bookmarks. As a result of the explosion, one of them was killed, the other was seriously injured, and two casual passers -by were also injured.
- The Security Service of Ukraine, together with the National Police, continues the nationwide information campaign “Sleeping” FSBShnik “, which is aimed at counteracting the recruitment of young people by Russian special services and prevention of arson, terrorist attacks and diversions.
- For example, in the Ternopil region, a student tried to recruit through Telegram to do sabotage, but he went to the police instead of answering.
Know more: Russian special services are increasingly recruiting Ukrainian teenagers: how to counteract this